Air Traffic Management (ATM) is expected to dramatically change in the next decade with the implementation of the NextGen system in the US and SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) system in Europe. It is anticipated that ATM is going to move from a traditional ground based controller giving vectors to each aircraft from take-off to touch down toward an ATM computer supporting an air traffic controller and ultimately to a total enroute free flight (i.e., no air traffic controller) system, with only terminal areas operating under the direction of air traffic controllers.
Development studies, like the European Union's ERASMUS (En Route Air Traffic Soft Management Ultimate System) program, of intelligent computers supporting human air traffic controller systems, have shown that even when ground based ATM software and/or on-board safety equipment has commanded behaviors in the traffic that will meet the minimum separation requirements between aircraft, controllers and pilots continue to have doubts about the future separation of the aircraft. As a result, pilots often command maneuvers that may result in overly excessive separation, which may cause unnecessary fuel burns and associated emissions. In ERASMUS, for example, a system computer looks approximately 20 minutes into the future. Any place where ERASMUS estimates there will be a breech in the minimum separation standard between aircraft, it attempts to resolve this with small speed changes of the aircraft which are theoretically not perceptible to the controller (i.e., will not cause concern in the controller about what a specific aircraft is doing). At the same time, because the air traffic controllers may not be aware that ERASMUS is solving a future issue that may arise in a different sector, and because the ERASMUS solution is designed to simply maintain separation between aircraft, in many of those cases controllers in system development studies have commanded/performed unnecessary maneuvers (i.e., wasting time and fuel) to obtain a cognitively comfortable feeling about future separation of the aircraft. In one study performed during the ERASMUS development program, approximately 30% of effective ERASMUS solutions were overridden by air traffic controllers.
The current minimum clearance standards between aircraft are relatively conservative given modern technology. The standards were established assuming much poorer accuracies in terms of actual aircraft position. Typically, the standards include a large error budget that creates a need for a significantly larger protective airspace, also referred to as a protective cylinder, around each aircraft. This in turn makes the minimum separation distance between these protective cylinders significantly larger than may be needed with modern technologies, such as NextGen and SESAR.
Today, modern flight management systems (FMS) technologies provide significantly more precise current and future position information, e.g., one nautical mile. Moreover, in ten years when GPS and Galileo are fully operational, accuracy is estimated to be closer to three meters. In addition, data link communication between air traffic controllers and an aircraft (or the aircraft's FMS), aircraft to aircraft communications, and/or FMS to FMS have the potential to dramatically reduce both the total communication and decision making time. In some situations, a pilot may only need to give the FMS permission to carry out the requested action. This capability not only saves the time of reprogramming the FMS, thus dramatically reducing the chance of a maneuvering error, but also eliminates the need for the air traffic controller (or ERASMUS like ground system) to issue a revised clearance.
These above technical improvements have the potential to decrease air traffic control clearance dwell time, reduce flight technical error, and mitigate pilot clearance read back and input errors. These improved efficiencies and faster response rates will mean more aircraft in a smaller given airspace coupled with a commensurate increase in pilot and controller decision making time. However, without some equivalent decision support help for the pilots and controllers, allowing them to quickly and accurately assess aircraft separation so that they feel comfortable with the technology's choices, it is reasonable to expect to see a degradation of potential system efficiency as the pilot and/or controller override the technological decisions because they may not be comfortable with their estimation of future aircraft separation based on what they perceive on their displays.
Hence, there is a need for a display system and method that displays in real-time to pilots and controllers projected accurately scaled aircraft positioning and associated protective airspace of an aircraft and nearby aircraft that may be of interest, thus allowing the pilots and controllers to quickly and accurately assess aircraft separation so that they feel comfortable with modern technologies such as NextGen & SESAR. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs.